Love
by Lynse
Summary: Follows Hope. Jack knows how important memories are and how desperate Susan is to remember everything she possibly can about Narnia, so he asks Tooth for help—and finds out precisely what's behind Susan's drive to never again forget.


A/N: This would take place sometime during the winter following Jack's first meeting with Susan. A conversation with LCAAS inspired Susan's tale at the end. Hopefully you'll find it amusing! Also, there are no pairings to be found in this fic, if anyone's wondering. Standard disclaimers apply.

* * *

Tooth's palace was as busy as it always was whenever Jack was there, ever a blur of bright colours and the curious sound of hundreds upon hundreds of little wings beating. There were hoards of mini fairies flitting around, zipping past without paying him any mind, intent on their task of sorting children's teeth into the correct memory box for each child. He'd long ago given his own box back to Toothiana for safekeeping, but they had an understanding; if ever he wanted to view his own memories again, he could go and fetch the box himself.

That wasn't why he was here this time, though.

Jack picked his way towards Tooth in a series of short leaps and bounds, careful not to get in the path of any of the little fairies. Of course, that didn't mean he didn't accumulate a small crowd. He'll admit he enjoyed the attention, perhaps more than he should, but a very small part of him was a little bit embarrassed. And that…wasn't something he felt often.

Jack landed on the opposing pillar and suddenly found one of those little fairies right in front of his nose. He blinked, then grinned as the mini fairy swam into focus. "Baby Tooth!"

The fairy in question chirped a response and settled on his shoulder. Still smiling widely, Jack made sure his final few leaps were gentle enough not to dislodge her. He didn't often see her, and he had to admit that he missed her. She was important to him. He'd helped her, snatched her out of the air before she was overtaken by Pitch's Night Mares. Then, when he'd needed it most, she'd helped him. She'd helped him find himself, reminded him of what he'd forgotten.

Helped him to remember who he had been and, ultimately, who he now was and why.

Toothiana, for her part, was fawning over some of the teeth the little fairies were bringing in, delighting in the story of how that particular tooth had been lost or how meticulously a child had flossed or, oh, the joy of a child's first lost tooth….

She was in her element, and her joy in it, her love for it, was evident.

When Jack kept silent, Baby Tooth left his shoulder to chirp something in Tooth's ear. Within seconds, Toothiana was fluttering in front of him, a slight frown on her face. "Jack? Is something wrong?"

Jack shook his head. "Everything's fine. Just…."

He'd come here this time with a request, and he was fairly certain Tooth was going to refuse him.

"Just?" Tooth prompted.

"Do you ever _look_ at the memories in the teeth?" Jack blurted out.

Tooth looked puzzled. "You came here just to ask me that?"

Jack shifted on his feet. "Well, no, but I sort of, um…."

Tooth put a hand on his shoulder and blessedly decided to spare him further embarrassment. "Sometimes," she said, and it took Jack a moment to realize it was in reply to his question. "If a child's troubled, I may only have the chance to remind him or her of one memory, and I have to choose the best one."

"And that's the only time?"

Tooth hesitated, then conceded, "Usually. You've noticed, I'm sure, that my fairies sometimes show me specific teeth but are content to take others straight to their proper memory boxes?"

"Yeah, but I didn't think that had anything to do with it," Jack said. "The memories, I mean. I thought it was just…." He waved a hand. "You know. A kid's first tooth and things like that."

"Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's more than that." Toothiana paused. "There are some memories, Jack, that are stronger than others. I'm sure you've realized that. There are some memories that are so strong that they call out. You know what that's like. You'd forgotten, and your memories begged to be reclaimed, but until you'd wanted to remember what had happened before, I couldn't hear them calling out above all this, and neither could you." She gestured around them. "I'm sorry, Jack. I should have known, but I hadn't listened. I didn't realize."

"It's all right," Jack said. It was now, at least, but he didn't want to dwell on that. "But what you were saying about stronger memories—isn't that just when someone needs to be reminded of something?"

Tooth shook her head. "No. Sometimes a memory is so powerful, a tooth can hardly contain it. And sometimes…it can't. Sometimes my fairies get overwhelmed by it the moment they take up the tooth, and they're lucky to get back here before they're caught in a daze by the children. They show me those memories too, Jack. They're a treasure, every one of them, and it helps me remember one of the reasons I do this."

"So anyone can see those ones?"

Tooth gave him a look. "Jack," she said, rather than answering the question, "what is this all really about?"

"I just…. So there isn't a way to see someone else's memories?"

Toothiana sighed and finally settled down beside him, wings resting at last. "I know you still don't remember everything," she said gently, "but I can't show you the memories of your family even if I wanted to."

This thought hadn't actually occurred to Jack, but as Tooth said it, he realized how much he would have loved for it to be possible.

He felt like he'd lost something without ever realizing he'd been holding onto the possibility.

"Wasn't that what you wanted to ask?" Tooth prompted after a moment.

It still took Jack a few seconds to find his voice. "No," he admitted. "Not really. It was more…. But _you_ can see anyone's memories, right?"

Tooth sighed. "Jack…."

"I…I wasn't going to ask about this for me," Jack hurriedly assured her. He knew, even as he said it, that he'd not be able to ask Tooth to tell him what his sister remembered now, despite thinking there was surely some way he might be able to get her to relent. But if it would have helped, and if she'd been able, he was sure she would have suggested it to him before this. She knew how much his memories meant to him.

His memories.

His life.

His family.

He'd had a little sister.

He'd _saved_ his little sister….

Toothiana looked puzzled and Baby Tooth let out an inquiring trill, so Jack explained, "Do you remember when I told you about Susan?"

"The Susan who can see you. Us," Tooth corrected herself, nodding. "Yes."

When she didn't say any more, Jack realized she was waiting for him to continue. "She once told me that she'd tried to forget something, something important, and—"

"And you want to know if I helped her remember it again?"

Jack nodded. That wasn't all he wanted to know, but that was part of it.

Tooth looked thoughtful for a moment, but finally she shook her head. "I don't remember her, Jack, and I'm sure I'd remember her if I did."

"She wasn't a child, exactly, when this happened," Jack said slowly. As a child, Susan had still been a Friend of Narnia. "She was…older. She would already have stopped believing in you."

Tooth laid a careful hand on his shoulder. "If someone helped her to remember, Jack, it wasn't me."

Well.

He couldn't say that news was exactly surprising.

"So you've never looked at her memories?"

Tooth pulled back, looking shocked. "Jack," she scolded, "I am not going to help you pry into her childhood just to satisfy your curiosity!"

"No, no, that's not what I mean," Jack said quickly. "I just…. I just wanted to know if there was something that would help her to remember more than she does. If there are any particularly special memories she has, I mean. I don't know when she lost her last tooth, so I don't know if she _had _any memories of…of Narnia in it."

Tooth relaxed slightly. "Narnia," she repeated.

"You know about it?" Jack asked eagerly.

"Not from the teeth of a child named Susan, but yes." Toothiana glanced at Baby Tooth, and the mini fairy twittered a phrase before flitting away. "Follow me, Jack."

Tooth led him down, far out of the fray, to a portion of the palace he'd only been once before. It was as he remembered it, with the possible exception of the art on the wall being a bit more…vibrant than before. But it was a peaceful place, the sounds of wings up above them somehow muted. Jack took a seat beside the still water, careful to keep more on the rocks than on the lichens, ferns, and bits of grass; while he would be careful not to freeze anything over, he rather suspected Tooth wouldn't appreciate a dead patch in what she clearly thought of as a special spot if he wasn't successful.

Baby Tooth was back in a moment, sagging a bit under the weight of two memory boxes she was carrying by their edges. Tooth quickly relieved her of the load and showed them to Jack. He stared at the smiling children—one boy, one girl—and tried to place them.

He couldn't.

"Edmund and Lucy Pevensie," Tooth explained.

Jack blinked. "Susan's brother and sister?" For a moment, it didn't make sense. Why just them? They were hardly the only children to go to Narnia.

And then he realized that they might have been the only ones with children's teeth left to lose upon their return. They were Susan's _younger_ siblings, after all. Susan and Peter, and before them Digory and Polly—they'd all been older. He wasn't sure about Eustace and Jill, but he _was_ sure that Edmund and Lucy would have spent much more time in Narnia than those two. They would have much stronger memories of the place. Or perhaps Baby Tooth hadn't brought their memory boxes as well simply because she couldn't carry them all, and Susan's siblings were the only ones he might recognize.

Susan had said that when they had come back from ruling Narnia for fifteen years, they'd suddenly found themselves to be schoolchildren again. They'd tripped and stumbled, often thinking themselves taller than they were. They'd pulled muscles that were no longer used to such hard work. Old scars on their flesh had vanished. And the younger two had lost their baby teeth. Again.

This time, somewhere where Tooth could collect them.

Children's teeth, from children who were no longer children, containing memories of impossible years lived.

"Their memories are strong, Jack," Tooth said. "They're rich and detailed and powerful. Pitch—" She broke off. Then, slowly, "I don't think Pitch realized what they were or he would have used them. But he wouldn't think he'd have any use of memories from children who are no longer here, I suppose, so he never investigated it. But, Jack, their memories…."

"So you've seen Narnia? Through their eyes?"

"Pieces of it," Toothiana admitted. "The memories are all but bursting out of the teeth, begging to be shared. And Narnia…. It's beautiful."

_Was beautiful_. But Jack didn't make the correction aloud. Besides, if the Narnia Susan had known, the Narnia North had travelled to and Tooth had seen visions of through the memories, was but a shadow of the real Narnia, he had no doubt that the real place was more beautiful still.

It made him wish he could see it, if only for a moment.

Baby Tooth settled on his shoulder, and Jack absently reached up one hand to stroke her. He enjoyed the contact, and she'd spent enough time with him to know it. "But you can't show these memories to Susan?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

Tooth gave him a small, sad smile. "I'm sorry, Jack. It doesn't work that way. The best I can do is show her her own memories again. It may bring something back, if not something specifically of Narnia."

"I don't know if she's missing something in particular," Jack said slowly. "She's told me quite a lot, but I know…. I know she fears she's missing something—many things—and that she just doesn't realize it."

Toothiana was quiet for a moment. Then, carefully, "You think she feels as you did?"

_Yes_. But Jack couldn't say it, so he merely nodded. He knew what it felt like to have a wonderful life, to happily push a nagging suspicion that can't be placed to the back of your mind—only to have it ripped to the forefront later, to find out that the nagging suspicion was because you'd forgotten something, something terribly important. Something that, despite your best efforts, you can't seem to recall, a thing made worse by how imperative it is that you _do_ recall it, and….

He'd first come upon Susan when she'd been reading letters she and her siblings had exchanged long ago. More than once, he'd caught her reading Lucy's diary and various journals the others had written. _"It helps me remember the little things I'd otherwise forget,"_ she'd told him.

Now being quite familiar with the slightly fearful feeling of not being able to remember everything, or at least everything important, Jack wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Well, except maybe Pitch.

"This is important to you, isn't it?" Toothiana observed. Without waiting for Jack to answer, she continued, "We can go now if you like. I don't know if it will help, but—"

"No, I think it would help," Jack countered, being well aware of the fact that _anything_ was better than _nothing_ when it came to things like this. He jumped to his feet, dislodging Baby Tooth from his shoulder in the process and ignoring her displeased twittering. "If we leave now and have a strong wind at our backs, we can be there in a couple hours."

Tooth's smile this time was a happier one. "I'll get the memory box."

* * *

When Jack blew into Susan's house, followed by Tooth, he couldn't find her right away and for a moment, he thought that she might not even be home.

But for whatever the reason—whether Susan's hearing was still as keen as ever, whether she'd noticed the abrupt drop in temperature that was spreading rapidly throughout the house with the chilled wind he'd brought with him, or whether she was gaining an intuition for when Jack came to visit—he wasn't looking long before he heard her calling out, "In the spare room!"

Jack knew, without asking for clarification, which spare room she meant.

…_from the far land of Spare Oom where eternal summer reigns around the bright city of War Drobe…._

"Come on," Jack said to Tooth, leading her quickly to the room which was empty save for the wardrobe.

The room in question wasn't as empty as it had been the last time Jack had seen it. Susan had set up a table in its centre, and it was there she sat, opened boxes at her feet, poring over…photographs.

"Whoa," Jack breathed, leaning over to get a better look. He'd never seen these before. The only pictures he knew were the ones Susan had drawn with her words. But these, _these_ were real. Tangible. Much more detailed than anything his imagination had crafted. Most of the pictures were black and white, snapshots of people and places he didn't quite recognize, but there was the odd burst of colour here and there from photos of later dates.

"Careful," Susan murmured, reaching over to pull some pictures away from the creeping line of frost that was spreading across the table from the hand Jack was resting against it.

"Sorry," Jack muttered, drawing back. "I wasn't thinking."

"No harm done," Susan assured him, looking up with a smile.

Jack noticed how her gaze pointedly wandered over his shoulder, and he quickly said, "Susan, this is Toothiana. Tooth, Susan." The fairy in question had stilled her wings and stood on the floor with the rest of them, something that rather surprised Jack, but he supposed it might have something to do with the fact that she was more mindful of Susan's tabletop full of loose photographs than he had been.

He wondered how many he'd managed to scatter when he'd flown in here.

Maybe he should take to knocking again.

At least none of the pictures had ended up on the floor…or gotten wet when his frost had melted.

Susan smiled warmly and rose to her feet. "A pleasure, my lady," she said, dipping into a quick curtsey.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you tell Bunny there wasn't any need to be formal when you met him?"

"The situation with Bunnymund was rather different," Susan pointed out as she straightened up. "I can recognize a fellow queen when I see one."

"Oh." Jack, catching sight of the amused faces of his companions, suddenly found the sight of the wooden floor and the frost he was beginning to spread upon it a rather more interesting one than he had before. "Right."

There was a quiet laugh from Tooth. "It's no matter," she said. "I certainly see no need for formalities." From the corner of his eye, Jack saw her gesture towards the table, and he looked there himself. "Are these pictures of your family?"

"And friends," Susan said. With a bit of encouragement on the part of both Jack and Tooth, she began pointing them out. Peter, Edmund, Lucy. Her mother and father. Professor Kirke. Polly. Eustace and Jill. A few other names Jack hadn't heard before—"But the stories that go with those people aren't nearly as interesting as the rest," Susan had acknowledged—and the odd one that he did, though not all from Susan's stories of Narnia.

"Where's that?" Jack asked, recognizing the wardrobe standing proudly behind Susan's brother Peter and the Professor. "That doesn't look like it was taken here." When had the wardrobe ever been moved?

"It wasn't," Susan said, following Jack's eye and picking up the photograph in question. "It was taken the year I was in America with Mother and Father. The same year Edmund and Lucy had their last trip to Narnia and cousin Eustace his first. Peter was sent to study under the Professor. My parents couldn't afford to take us all with them."

"You were the lucky one," Jack observed.

"I thought so at the time, but I've often wondered since," Susan replied softly. "The others had Narnia, or at the very least some constant reminder of it. But even then, I was beginning to try to put it all behind me, thinking I had to grow up. The world had changed so much. The war was still going on, but…." She shook her head. "I was a fool then."

Jack, who had a hard time picturing Susan ever being a fool, opened his mouth and was about to say something when Tooth caught his eye. The Guardian of Memories shook her head, just slightly, and he took the cue for what it was and closed his mouth again.

Susan stared at the picture for a moment more before putting it down and looking back up at Jack. "Times were hard then. The Professor couldn't keep this house. I still think of it as his, but it was certainly not from his family that I acquired it, and it was many years before I was able to do so. It isn't quite as I remember it, not really, and I never did expect it to be, but this room…." Her eyes drifted to the wardrobe. "This room is the same. I couldn't bear to change it, to turn it into a proper spare room. I wanted something to be the same, and the Professor had left me the wardrobe…."

"He knew it would help you," Tooth said gently. "He knew it would help you remember what you'd forgotten."

"He was a wiser man than I'd ever realized," Susan acknowledged, "and I had once thought him very wise indeed." She smiled wryly, adding, "When we first came back from Narnia, I fancied myself wiser than my peers. In some ways, I was, but in others, I was no better than them. I think that was, in part, responsible for my downfall." She tapped another picture. "I'd split myself off by this point. It's the last picture I have of everyone."

The last picture taken before the accident, she meant. "That's everyone who knew of Narnia?"

"Everyone except me," Susan agreed. "They were the Seven Friends of Narnia, and I was the Lost Queen."

"You've a table full of memories," Tooth murmured, one hand tracing the edge of a photograph of four children at a train station.

"The pictures, the journals, the newspaper clippings…." Susan trailed off and looked over to Jack. "Those, and especially the stories I tell, help me to remember. To remember not just the lessons I've learned or the things I've seen, but the people I love and everything we've shared. That's what's important to me. That's what I don't want to ever lose."

Jack thought he knew what she meant. He'd forgotten his family. His mother, his father, his sister….

When he'd forgotten those who had loved him and those he'd loved in return, he'd become lost himself.

"Love is a powerful thing, the memory of it no less so," Toothiana said quietly. "I was saved by it once."

"You—what? You were?" Jack stared at her. "I didn't know that!"

Tooth smiled and admitted, "There are many things you don't know about all of us, Jack, just as there are many things we don't know about you. We all have our own stories, the pieces of our past that truly make us who we are. There is a reason that I am the Guardian of Memories while you are the Guardian of Fun. Our experiences and our families crafted our centres."

Jack decided then and there that if Tooth was willing to tell it, he was going to hear that story of hers. But not now; now wasn't the time. In fact, now wasn't the time for him to do anything, for Tooth had drawn a memory box out of the tiny cloth bag she'd carried with her. She held the little box out to Susan, a box that looked nearly identical to Jack's, save for the picture of the beautiful, smiling girl on its end.

Susan looked at it as if it were a royal treasure and tentatively took it from Tooth's grasp, but Jack could tell as she studied it that she didn't know what it was.

Maybe he should tell her a bit more about them, considering how much he'd heard about her.

"It's a memory box," Tooth said quietly. "Your memory box. It contains all the baby teeth I've collected from you, and more importantly, it holds the most important memories of your childhood inside of them." Tooth reached out to rest a hand on his arm, adding, "Jack here thought you might like to relive them even if you haven't completely forgotten them."

"I don't think there's anything of Narnia in there, from what Tooth says," Jack admitted, "but I thought it might…help."

Susan's smile was brilliant and bright. "It won't have to be of Narnia to remind me of it," she said. Timid fingers lightly traced the pattern on the box's surface, and the container opened. From Jack's perspective, it didn't look like much—just tiny teeth carefully lined up on red velvet—but he knew from experience that it was so much more than that.

Even if he didn't know from experience, Susan's expression as she saw her own memories again would be enough to tell him.

Jack could never tell, later, how long he had stood there, Tooth at his side, just watching and waiting. It didn't matter, really. It was a comfortable silence, and anything _but_ silence, anything _but _respectful attention, would feel wrong.

By the time the memory box sealed itself again, Susan's cheeks were wet with tears, for all that she was still smiling. "Thank you," she said fervently. She looked younger now, more alive than before, more _herself_ than before—something Jack had always imagined was a change wrought by Narnian air rather than the mere memory of it.

Tooth's smile was knowing, and she carefully took the memory box back. "Our most precious memories often are of our family," she replied.

"I'd forgotten how Lucy's laughter sounded," Susan confessed, "and the way Peter's eyes twinkled when he was amused, and the look Edmund would get on his face when we managed to surprise him. It was terribly hard to do, as he was rather sneaky, but when we managed it…." She chuckled. "Seeing and hearing and _living_ that again makes all the past seem closer than before. It makes _them_ seem closer, separated by fewer worlds. And it makes my other memories seem…brighter, more vivid. Renewed, I suppose. I can nearly smell the fresh Narnia air, hear Mr. Tumnus playing one of his haunting melodies, feel Aslan's warm breath on my brow…."

"It isn't always as much the memories themselves as the emotions tied to them," Tooth agreed. "You love your family very much."

"My family, my country, and Aslan most of all." Susan was quiet for a moment. "I'd thought he'd abandoned me, you know, when I was told I'd learned all I could from Narnia. I refused to believe it at first, but when I couldn't find him, I feared that that was what had happened. He'd said…. He'd said he was here in this world, that I'd have to learn to know him by the name he went by here, and I tried, but I…." Susan broke off. "I was lost."

"But you found your way again," Jack offered.

"He found me," Susan corrected. "I daresay he never lost sight of me, for all that I'd wandered away, and he never stopped loving me for all my transgressions. I was a fool then, as I'd said. I spent too much time _searching_ for him and not enough time _looking_ for him. If I'd only opened my eyes in all the time I'd thought I'd been searching, I would never have felt cut off from him, for I'd have realized I never was." She reached out to trace the edge of the picture that showed the Seven Friends of Narnia. "I should have listened to them."

Tooth put a comforting hand on Susan's shoulder. "They'll understand, and you'll be forgiven. They love you very much."

"I was no longer a Friend of Narnia. Were it not for Aslan…." Susan sighed. "It doesn't bear thinking about how differently things would have gone if I hadn't found him here. He is loving and forgiving, but he is fair, and my time without my family is my due for the separation I deliberately brought between us while we were all still on this Earth. If I'm to see them again, I will have to travel through a different door, and only then by Aslan's love and with his grace."

"You'll see them again," Jack said confidently. The thought that she wouldn't didn't cross his mind. He saw who she was now, and though he didn't know how much she'd changed from the grieving young woman who had lost her family in a train wreck, he knew it was a significant change.

She could see him, after all. She could see all of them, had been able to do so even without believing in them specifically.

She had faith. She had a keen eye for magic, for spotting things in this world that so many others ignored, if only because she'd spent time in another world. She'd learned much from that. She'd learned how to live, how to love, how to be the person she was today. Her experiences, her memories, had shaped her as surely as his had shaped him.

She was Queen Susan the Gentle, formerly of Finchley, and Narnia's Once-Lost Queen of the Horn. And she would _always_ be a queen, regardless of however much time she'd spent pretending otherwise.

"I hope so," Susan whispered.

"I think Jack's right," Tooth agreed. "You four aren't meant to be separated forever."

"And you aren't the first to stray," Jack added, remembering Susan's stories. "You've realized your mistakes now, just like Edmund had, and you haven't made them again. You—"

"I haven't made them _recently_," Susan corrected, "but I unfortunately have been foolish enough to make the same mistake twice, unlike Edmund. Didn't I tell you that I'd fallen to listening to my fears? Aslan himself pointed that out to me, yet I still fell into the same trap upon our return to England."

Oh.

She had mentioned that.

"But…." Jack cast about for something to say, eyes darting from Susan to Tooth to the wardrobe against the back wall to the table full of pictures in front of him. "But you love them. And Aslan. And they love you. Doesn't that…? Doesn't it…?"

He couldn't put it to words, but Susan seemed to know what he meant. "From what I've learned since my time in Narnia, yes. Love is strong. It is patient and forgiving. It trusts and it hopes. It endures; it protects. I never properly understood that for the longest time. I'd thought only of my love for my family and what it drove me to do for them and them for me. I'd forgotten—_forgotten_, of all the things to forget!—how important _Aslan's_ love is."

Susan picked up another picture, this one showing a smiling family dressed in their Sunday best. From the lack of shadows in the expressions of her parents and the lack of wisdom in the children's faces, Jack suspected that that one had been taken before Narnia. "Even before I knew about him, he loved me. Even when I turned from him, he loved me. He never stopped, even if I didn't realize that at first. Love endures, Aslan's most of all."

"But you won't forget that again," Jack pointed out, suspecting that was one of Susan's fears.

"Perhaps I won't," Susan agreed softly, "but others may. That's why one of the best things you've done for me, Jack, is listen. You've let me tell my stories. Through them, and with _this_—" here she motioned towards the memory box which Tooth had now replaced in its carrying bag "—you've made sure that I'll remember and, hopefully, that my stories will be remembered."

Her stories, and the lessons within them, no doubt.

"You won't forget those you love," Tooth murmured. "Not truly."

Jack didn't want to say something, but the words were out of his mouth before he could hold them back. "I did."

The pained look in Tooth's eyes made him regret his words immediately. "Jack…."

"It's true," he pointed out, thinking he could make her understand. "I didn't know I'd had a family. I didn't think I'd had any life other than this!" He tapped his staff against the far wall to prove his point, watching as frost immediately began spreading out, millions of tiny ice crystals springing up in floral patterns under his direction. "That's all I had at first," he said. "That, and my name. Nothing else."

"Jack—" Tooth began, but he didn't let her finish. Now that he'd started, he couldn't stop.

"The Man in the Moon didn't tell me anything else," Jack insisted, somehow no longer minding Toothiana's hurt expression. "I didn't even know about you guys until I started running into you. And even though you were the only ones who could see me, could hear me and interact with me, most of you still ignored me. Because you thought I was nothing more than a trouble maker!"

"But Jack—"

It wasn't really fair to take it out on Tooth. While he'd heard of her, he hadn't met her until North had had him kidnapped. But it was certainly true of Bunny, if none of the other four. Sandy hadn't ignored him, exactly, but he wasn't one for saying much. And North had always been too busy to do anything with Jack, even when he'd been trying to break into his shop.

There was a reason he'd known Phil better than North, that first time he'd actually gotten inside.

"I didn't have _anyone_," Jack continued, cursing his voice as it broke on the last word. "The wind was my only friend! I know you didn't know, but you didn't try to find out, either!"

"Jack." Susan now, her voice quiet and calm but undeniably commanding.

"I just…." Jack shook his head, deflating, and turned away. "It doesn't matter." A small part of him noticed that this side of the room was now coated in a thick layer of ice and that the temperature must have dropped enough to make it uncomfortable for Tooth, let alone Susan.

The rest of him was still too hurt to care.

A hand touched his shoulder like it had that very first night he'd met her, and Jack knew it was Susan's. Sure enough, when he turned to face her, he noticed that Tooth still hadn't moved, a shocked expression fixed on her face. But Susan's expression was quite different. Determined, as it had been when she'd told off Bunnymund for neglecting one of the things that ought to be most important to him, yet still…understanding.

"You weren't alone," she said.

_Yes, I was_. But he didn't need to say it for her to know he was thinking it.

"Do you remember what I told you the first night I met you?"

Jack frowned. "Yes?" It came out like a question. That was just as well, for as much as he thought he remembered everything, he didn't know what she was getting at.

"Aslan is here," Susan repeated, "just as he was in there in Narnia. He watches over us all. Even you, Jack Frost. You were not alone."

"I felt alone," Jack muttered.

"But you weren't; you simply didn't allow yourself to see him. But perhaps you felt him. Something kept you from falling to despair. Something kept you from shutting the world away when you felt shut out from it."

"You think it was Aslan?"

"You needn't sound bitter about it," Susan reprimanded lightly. "Can you deny that something seemed to shield you from the darkness, to allow you to keep that spark of fun inside you alive?"

He couldn't, but he suspected she already knew that.

"Aslan's love is strong," Susan said simply. "It's no weaker because you aren't aware of what it is."

"I'm sorry, Jack," Tooth said, her voice quiet and sounding somewhat strained. "I didn't…. _We_ didn't…. I'm sorry. I should have realized."

He _almost_ said, _"Yes, you should have."_

He didn't, though.

Tooth's apology was sincere, and she looked truly horrified by what he'd endured, the gravity of it not quite striking her until now.

Unfortunately, though, she was right: some memories were strong. He was still haunted by these ones.

"You aren't alone," Susan said again, the fierceness in her voice reminding her of something he had once said to Jamie.

"_We'll always be there."_

Perhaps he'd been able to say that with such certainty because he'd known, on some level, that someone would always be there for him. North, Susan, Tooth, Baby Tooth…even Bunny, especially now.

Aslan, by whatever name he was known in this world.

He may have thought he was alone then, but he couldn't think he was alone now, not with so much evidence to the contrary.

"Yeah," Jack murmured. "I know."

"Friends or family, the bonds forged can be very strong indeed. Don't underestimate them." Susan hugged him tightly and added in a whisper, "You don't need to make my mistakes. You don't need to push people away. There's no shame to be had in accepting the love others offer you, especially when you so dearly need it. Families may be defined as much by the love that binds them together as any defined by blood. You have a family now as surely as you did before you became Jack Frost. Remember that."

Remember those you love and those who love you in return, she meant. Remember that even if you think you are lost, someone will be searching for you. Remember that even if you make mistakes, you will, upon their admission and true repentance, be welcomed with understanding and open arms. The consequences you face will be tough but fair ones, regardless of how hard and harsh they seem, but you'll have support as you weather them.

_You have a family._

_You are not alone._

"You are loved," Susan added vehemently. "And because of that, you'll never be alone."

When Susan pulled away, Jack was able to give her a small smile. "I know," he repeated. Looking at Tooth, he added, "I'm sorry." And then to both of them: "Thank you."

"Aslan will watch over you," Susan reminded him. "Remember that as well." With one arm firmly around his shoulders, she led him away from the chill of the ice. Gesturing for Tooth to join them with her other hand, she said, "Come, I'll make some tea. We can sit down around the kitchen table." With a sideways glance at Jack, she asked, "Did I ever tell you about the first time we hosted representatives from Calormen? When the Tarkaan sent on the Tisroc's behalf had so foolishly thought we, being mere children in his eyes, were naïve enough to be coerced into signing a very unfavourable treaty—without being sorely defeated in battle, no less?"

Her smile was contagious, and Jack couldn't help but return it. "I don't think so."

Susan laughed. "It's a tale well worth hearing! Oh, you should have seen the man's face when we were through with him. It all started early in the second year of our reign, when we were still very much finding our feet…."

Jack caught Tooth's eye and grinned, and she offered a tentative smile back. Their earlier words were not forgotten, but they would be much better discussed after Susan's story. For all that he knew she was telling it now on purpose—another show of wisdom on her part—he didn't mind the temporary distraction it afforded them to think on what had been said. After all, it was shaping up to be a very good story—as Susan's stories always were.

And he did so love listening to her stories.


End file.
